Two cringe worthy stories of meeting someone who you thought was Great online – in person.
The internet is a wonderful place – isn’t it? It is the ONLY place I can think of – where in the comfort of your home, auto – plane – anywhere with a WiFi connection when you think about it – one can find out how to repair just about anything, find information on their favorite topics – comment, troll or basically harass any online individual, or website they’re able to get on for anything they agree or disagree with.
We can do all these amazing things and still watch free porn to our hearts content if we so desire. And for all the lonely hearts, we had the opportunity to meet and talk with people with whom we never would have met otherwise – if it weren’t for the World Wide Web.
Before all the dating/hook-up sites and apps became available, all we had were the singles forums on Prodigy and AOL. After that, chat became available.Single men and women no longer had to rely solely on local availability. The world now literally was our oyster.The only downside to all this was at that time, we had to rely on the honesty of whom we were chatting with. Especially in regards to their appearance.
While digital images were available, scanners were expensive so we had only 3 choices back then.
1. Pay someone with a scanner to scan a few photos of us.
2. Send a few photos in the mail.
3. Be REALLY convincing when we described ourselves.
The problem with those choices were…. especially with options 1 & 2 – that photos could be misleading. Or at the very least, not tell the entire story. Many women who would send photos of themselves, would send only head shots, glamour shots, blurry or from a distance. I have no idea about men but I can honestly say that 95% of all the women I met online back then never looked like how they described themselves (many even with a photo) when I met them in person.
You meet online – talk on the phone – hopefully get a photo – talk on the phone some more – and if everything seemed to go ok – you met in person and hoped for the best. Being in my mid thirties back then was the perfect age for a man to meet women this way because this was all very new. And I did meet my share of them.
Many were out of state meaning, they either had to fly out to meet me, or I had to fly out to meet them. Interestingly enough, I found that it was MUCH better for the women to fly out to meet me instead of the opposite. They were more relaxed and stress free staying at my place during their visit than having a man they may have felt they knew but had yet to meet in person, staying at theirs.
I can honestly say – not once did I or anyone I’ve ever met from online – in person – stay at a hotel. Now, I will say that after meeting a few of them – I wish I (or they) had. Although none of the women turned out to be anything more than an interesting weekend, I have no regrets for the most part.
Eventually, I gave up on it all out of pure frustration from the travel just to find out they weren’t exactly who they portrayed themselves to be. It eventually turned into a numbers game I no longer had the desire to play. But – if you’re like me – there are always a few we NEVER forget.
Below are two of them. Their names have been changed.
1. Susan
I met Susan as I did many women, through AOL chatroom’s like, “Singles over 30.” I can’t remember whether or not she sent me a photo before our meeting but she did have one of me. I was a graphic designer, so I had a scanner. She seemed like a nice enough young woman in her mid 20’s. Divorced and I believe had at least one child who at the time of our meeting was not at home.
We talked online for a week or so, then on the phone.We hit it off pretty good while getting to know each other so we decided to go to the next step and meet in person.
She lived approximately 5 hours away from me so it was a drive I didn’t mind making. From our conversations, I was looking forward to meeting her. She lived in an older part of town in an older basic style house. Nothing fancy. I was pleasantly surprised when she opened her front door to greet me. Nothing drop dead gorgeous mind you but neither am I. Suffice to say I found her physically attractive and from her behavior I guess she felt the same.
It was the moment I walked through her front door I realized there was going to be a problem.
Something just didn’t smell right. No, I mean literally – something didn’t smell right. In fact – the smell was pretty awful.
After receiving the nickle tour of the house and the back yard, I noticed she had a couple of dogs. It hit me! That was the smell. Dog Shit. But where was it coming from?
It seemed like it was strongest while I was inside her house. It couldn’t be…. could it? The thought did cross my mind that possibly one of her dogs had a rather pungent accident somewhere in the house that she simply hadn’t taken care of yet. That seemed reasonable to me. So, while having a few minutes to myself, I decided to do a little detective work. The house was fairly small so I believed I could find the culprit in short time. Little did I realized the horror I was about to discover.
While walking through the house, I came across a closed bedroom door. My nose told me that this had to be the place. I opened said door slightly to take a quick peek inside and what I found was like….. DAMN!
The entire room was littered with piles of poop! And they had been there for awhile. IF I had to have guessed – there were probably 40 piles, (and that’s being conservative.) And you have to remember – this room was carpeted, yes…. Carpeted!
Finding myself completely mortified, I had to ask – I just had to ask. Why on Gods Green Earth does she have a room inside her house covered in dog shit?
She responded nonchalantly, as if nothing was out of the ordinary, that the room was specifically used as the dogs toilet in the event she was unable to let them outside.
That was enough for me, I made an excuse a few hours later that something had come up at home that required me to cut my trip short and went home that night. Needless to say we never talked again.
You know the old saying, ‘if something seems to good to be true – it usually is?”
Well, this next story describes this to a tee.
2. Kelly
I met Kelly the same way I met most women online. AOL, in a chatroom.
We hit it off right from the start. She was intelligent, funny and like myself, a romantic. I can’t remember whether or not I received a photo of Kelly before we met in person but the way she described herself, her personality and the attention she gave me was enough for me not to be concerned about it.
Kelly did everything right. It became obvious though our chats and talking for hours on the phone that we were very interested in each other. But she went a few steps further than anyone else I had met online. She went out of her way to do romantic things for me. Which was very rare in those days. I hindsight – I understand why but I have to admit, at the time, I loved it!
The relationship looked even more promising for that fact that I was planing on moving to the state she lived in and to a city which was fairly close to her. We had been talking online and on the phone for a couple of months and made the decision to meet at her house for the weekend, after which I would continue with the final leg of the move. It was a cross country move so I figured it would take five to six days to drive there.
Here’s the cool part. I received a box from her a few days before I was supposed to be on my way. Inside the box were 5 colorfully wrapped and numbered packages along with a note instructing me to open one package at the end of each day.
I won’t say what the gifts were other than a few were romantic and the rest, erotic. Now who could ask for more than that…. huh?
That being said – The Devils Advocate occasionally jumped on my shoulder and whispered in my ear all the “What if” questions which grew louder and louder with each passing day, .
What if I don’t find her attractive?
What if there’s no chemistry?
What if she’s crazy?
They were short lived thoughts as I was also reminded of the movie “You’ve got mail” where Toms Hanks character says…
“This woman is the most adorable creature I’ve ever been in contact with and if she turns out even to be as good-looking as a mailbox, I’d be crazy not to turn my life upside down and marry her.”
Now, I do need to clarify that the idea of marrying anyone at that time never entered my mind, but – you get my point. So, I continued to hope for the best.
OK, [DEEP BREATH]
After 5 long days of driving – I arrived at her house. Nice house, colonial style. Looks like it’s well kept.
As I get out my car and make my way to the front door, I say a little prayer that all my expectations would turn out to be correct.
I knocked on her front door with great anticipation and hope that the above prayer was heard.
The very first sound I heard was that of barking of dogs. Dogs – as in plural – as in – more than one. And I’m not talking about the high pitched yelps of dogs like chihuahuas or dachshunds. I’m talking BIG dogs – which in fact turned out to be labradors. Three of them!
I didn’t even have the chance to look up to see who opened the door because the minute the door was opened, these 3 labs barreled out and began jumping all over me. Don’t get me wrong – they weren’t attacking me in a violent way, they were simply overly excited to see who the guy was standing at the front door.
When I finally was able to see her, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised that she was a pretty close match in the way she described herself physically. She wasn’t exactly how I pictured her in my mind [no one ever is] but she was definitely not unattractive either.
However……..
and you’re NOT going to believe this……
The minute she opened the door wide enough to invite me in, I was completely overpowered (like a ton of bricks hitting me all at once) with the overwhelming stench of dog…..
(wait for it……)
nope….. not dog shit.
It was dog urine. Her entire house was inundated with the odor. So much so that all the carpeting in the house had been removed and some of the actual flooring underneath had to be replaced.
It was disgusting. Truly disgusting. I will admit, she did apologize for the state of her house and the smell, but that didn’t matter. All my thoughts – hopes – all the romantic things she did for me were crushed in an instant.
My first thought was – how on earth can someone live like this? My second thought was – didn’t I go through this same thing a few months earlier? And my third thought was – how can I turn a long weekend into a polite afternoon and evening because I had to get out of there. There was NO way I was going to stay in that house longer than was absolutely necessary. I can’t remember the exact excuse I made for having to leave early but – as I don’t consider myself a mean or rude individual – I’m certain that what ever it was – was said in the most polite way I could think of. Although I did remain through the afternoon and had dinner (at a restaurant) even though she offered to cook.
The sad part about all this is that my entire view of her changed. My thoughts of romance and relationships had vanished.
How one lives is a large part of who they are. That is just one (of many) things you can’t learn simply from talking online or on the phone. Again, needless to say we didn’t talk much more after that experience. And obviously, not in the same manner as we did before meeting her in person.
I did return two gifts she had given me during my trip out there as they were personal.
I don’t believe I met too many more women from online after that. The ones I had were somewhat of a disappointment as I found that most had either lied or grossly embellished the way they described themselves. Which I could never understand. Why would someone do that if they knew the truth would come out when they met in person?
Skype and other visual formats came out soon after which made it a whole lot easier in determining whether or not to meet someone but by that time – I was pretty much over it.
Again – don’t get me wrong. I’d say – at least 85% of all the women I met from online in person were pleasant experiences. And I honestly believe that 85% of the women who met me could say the same. But that’s all they were. Before I met them in person I had always hoped it would turn out to be something more.
The one thing I did take away from meeting women in person from online is that until the day comes when you actually do meet in person, try to keep a level head. Because all you’re getting are slices of a pie and not the whole pie. And until you meet, you don’t even know what kind of pie it is. All you really know is from what you’ve seen so far is – that pie looks delicious. From my experience, it’s rarely the case.
Gilda Radner sums these stories up quite nicely when – at the end of each skit on SNL where she played Roseanne Roseannadanna – she said with a raspy New York accent….
“It just goes to show ya – it’s always something…”
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